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Which? is calling on the UK Government to appoint a regulator to protect access to cash, as a combination of bank branch and cashpoint closures risks leaving people in Scotland struggling to pay for essential goods and services.

Despite the increased popularity of digital and card payments – which have proven vulnerable to IT failures – having access to cash is still a necessity for more than 25 million people across the country.

Which? is concerned that the double blow of cashpoint and bank closures is leaving communities struggling to access the cash they rely on.

Scotland has seen 399 bank branches close since 2015, making it one of the worst affected areas in the UK and these closures risk having an impact on businesses and communities alike.

Meanwhile, 290 cashpoints have closed in a year, the majority of which were free-to-use machines (204).

While this might not seem a large number of cashpoint closures compared to the 250 free-to-use cashpoints that are closing across the UK every month, closures are harder felt in Scotland due to its many rural communities, combined with an already devastated bank branch network.

Which? is warning that the UK risks drifting into a cashless society that could shut people out of paying for local goods and services, without urgent regulatory action to manage these changes and intervene when necessary to protect this payment method.

Recent analysis has found that leading banks are suffering at least one major security or IT glitch per week – with outages of Visa payments and IT failures across a vast number of UK banks, including the prolonged issues at TSB, which have caused chaos for millions of customers. Which? is concerned that people will be left vulnerable without a non-digital payment alternative as access to cash declines across the UK.

Previous Which? research has revealed the UK has lost two thirds of its branch network in the last 30 years, leaving a fifth of households more than three kilometres from their nearest bank.

Link data on cashpoint withdrawals also suggests that some parts of the UK are making the move away from cash more quickly than others – demonstrating why changes in consumer behaviour must be carefully monitored across the nation as a whole.

For instance, Scotland saw a drop of just 3.3 per cent, while withdrawals in London and the South East fell by 8.5 per cent and 7.7 per cent respectively in 2017-18.

While digital payments are on the rise in the UK, there is still real appetite across the country for access to cash from consumers and businesses alike.

Which? previously found almost three-quarters (73%) of the population still use cash frequently to pay for goods and services.

And in a 2018 Which? survey, more than three in five (61%) were negative about the idea of notes and coins ceasing to exist all together. Only 15 per cent were positive about the possibility.

Which?’s new campaign calls for Government to appoint a regulator with sole responsibility for the cash infrastructure to ensure consumers and businesses can continue accessing cash

“Cash is also a vital backup as fallible digital payments grow in popularity – so the UK Government must appoint a regulator to oversee these changes and ensure no-one is excluded and left struggling to go about their daily lives.”

Notes to editors

Which?’s campaign is called: Freedom to pay. Our way.

Cashpoint closure figures for Scotland were supplied by Link in January 2019 and relate to January 2018 to December 2018.
UK withdrawal figures were supplied by Link and compare 2018 to 2017.

Which? research
While digital payments are on the rise in the UK, almost three-quarters (73%) of the population still uses cash frequently to pay for goods and services. Meanwhile, over half (57%) of consumers say they had recently experienced a situation in which they could only pay by cash. Populus, on behalf of Which?, surveyed 2076 UK adults online between the 7th and 9th September 2018. The data were weighted to be demographically representative of the population.

Bank closure figures
Which? has recorded bank branch closures since 2015 in which time 3,314 have closed across the UK, with 399 closures in Scotland.

According to parliamentary records, there were 20,583 branches in 1988, but Which? analysis of all the current account providers shows that there are just 7,586 today, a reduction of two thirds of the network.

Ceeney Report: Access to cash, December 2018 – “In this first report, we ask the question ‘Is Britain ready to go cashless?’. Our research has shown that – as of today – the answer is a firm ‘no’. Cash is still an economic necessity for around 25 million people.”